Abstract
This paper investigates accentedness in the speech of Chinese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). 20 native English listeners rate for accentedness, comprehensibility and intelligibility after listening to 30 sentences produced by 28 Chinese EFL learners and 2 native English speakers. Through the rating task and a questionnaire, the study reveals: a) that among different aspects of pronunciation , prosodic features have a significant correlation with accentedness; moreover, they play the most important role in affecting comprehension of accented speech; b) that there is a significant negative correlation between accentedness and comprehension of accented speech; and c) that the English native speakers hold a fairly tolerant and postive attitude towards accentedness. Pedagogical implications of the study are discussed to shed light on English Phonetics teaching.
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